Metal band likes to mix things up

Listening to Stone Sour can give you a case of musical schizophrenia. The group teases with melodic rock and fires you up with speed metal riffs.

Even though they have just two albums - not counting the special edition release of 2006's Come What(Ever) May, which features mucho bonus material - the music leaves an indelible impression, whether you're recoiling from the sonic assault of 30/ 30-150 or swaying to the gentle musings of Through Glass.

The contrast in styles is stark, yet very amusing.

"We don't believe in genres," founding guitarist Josh Rand says. "We believe in good music or bad music. Hell, we may have a jazz lounge tune on the next record. The cool thing is we don't set out to do this, all these different styles. It just happens. It's the writing process. We all write as individuals and then bring it together. We just want to make it better, but we keep the individual writer's vision in mind and try not to stray too much from that. Ultimately, we want to make great music."

Each member of the five-piece band - Rand, vocalist Corey Taylor and guitarist James Root, both of Slipknot, bassist Shawn Economaki and drummer Roy Mayorga - brings something different to the creative process. Taylor is considered the melody-maker while Rand is the riff guy. He counts metal bands like Accept, Dream Theater, and more mainstream hard rockers like Metallica, Kiss, Motley Crue as big influences, but has a penchant for guitar gods like Joe Satriani and Dream Theater's John Petrucci.

"Metallica is still the biggest influence overall," he admits, which is obvious from the way Stone Sour loves to interplay between speed and melody. "It's when I first picked up the instrument."

Stone Sour broke out in 2002 with an eponymous, eclectic album that featured the Billboard hit Bother. It was no overnight sensation, though. It took almost 10 years of playing bars and small concert settings before the band got signed.

"Corey went on to join Slipknot in 1997 or 1998, but we have known each other forever," says Rand.

"We kept writing together. We had a project we did for ourselves, a couple of songs, and Get Inside My Idol Hands caught the record company's attention and they said we should do a band. We already had a band, so we brought everybody back."

For the eclectic Come What(Ever) May, "we did the opposite of what we did on the first, which was 95 percent live," Rand explains. "We had a lot of success on the first record because of Bother, but this time, we really wanted to isolate and focus on the sonics. The great thing about this band is we really believe we have no boundaries."